In the Shadows of Legends
by KibaCanLickMe
Summary: Its hard to live up to everyones expectations when your parents are some of the most amazing shinobi to ever live. Meandering thoughts from the children of Gaara, Neji, Sakura, Kiba, Ino, Shino, Naruto, Sasuke, Tenten, etc...Rated M just in case.
1. Naoko

_Naoko_

Growing up the child of someone who is legendary isn't all its cracked up to be. To be honest, sometimes it down right sucks. People have all these crazy expectations of you. They expect so much from you that there is no way you can possibly measure up. Don't get me wrong, being the daughter of one of the most prolific shinobi ever is great, I love my dad with all my heart, but sometimes it can be frustrating. Luckily for me, I have a brother and a sister who know how it is, probably even better than I do, and I've got a bunch of friends that have the same problems.

I'm sure you want to know how I have so many friends that have the same issues as me, well my father, the Kazekage of Sunagakure, happens to be the best friend of the former Hokage of Konohagakure, who just so happens to a founding member of the Konoha Bojan, the most legendary fighting force in the hidden villages. I guess I should mention that my mother is a member too. So several times a year all the old members of the Bojan get together for a picnic or party or something or other, we call them retreats, and reminisce. A result of this is that all of their children have to spend this time together, and hence we're all friends, well we're sorta friends, some of us get along better than others, and some of us are family so that's a little different too, but basically we all get along. So while the adults all talk about how great it used to be when they were active ninja in the prime of their youth, we kids all get together and talk about how it would have been better to be born to some of the more average shinobi. Its because of these bonds that school is manageable, I have some trouble fitting in sometimes and they help me out when I'm having a rough time at school. My cousin Sayori in particular is a life saver. While sometimes I'm not really sure she even likes me, she always keeps other kids from making fun of me, I guess she figures she's can tease me because she's family, but nobody else better do it because she'll kick their asses. It probably helps that she's one of the prettiest konoichi in Konoha and everyone wants to be her friend, but still it means a lot to me that she sticks up for me. I'm not from this village, my home is in Sunagakure, but my parents and my Aunt Temari and Uncle Konkouro, sent me, my brother and sister, and my cousins to the ninja academy in Konoha.

My dad, Suna's Kazekage, said sending us to school here would help solidify the alliance Suna has with Konoha. Plus I think it was really important to my mother, and my Aunt Tenten and Uncle Shikamaru, that their children spend some time growing up in their home villages. My mother doesn't ever say it, but sometimes I think she misses her old home. With us all going to school here though, they get to come visit it pretty often so every one wins but us kids. When I started school here I got picked on a lot because I'm not from here, Sayori put a stop to it eventually but for a while it was pretty awful. My brother and sister didn't seem to have a problem fitting in from the start, but I've always been different and handling the celebrity of my family along with the difficulties of being from another village was not easy for me.

Some of us handle the burden better than others, but than some of us have it better off than others. I for one, think I've probably got it the worst. To start with, my father Gaara, was the youngest person to ever become a kage, in the history of the hidden villages. Talk about pressure, I'm only 14 and already I'm older than my dad was when he became Kazekage. I totally can not even imagine having that kind of responsibility right now, and there is no way anyone would give it to me. I'm really not that respected in the village. I guess that's because my older brother and sister are way better shinobi, and they are really well liked in both Suna and Konoha. So besides not living up the greatness of my father, I can't even hold a candle to my own brother and sister, what a disappointment I must be to my parents.

So like I said, I've probably got it the worst. People always expect so much from me, and constantly I let them down. I think its because I've inherited the most distinguishing looks of both my parents and yet hold none of their promise. My hair is a bright flame red mop on the top of my head, I've tried to grow it long like my sisters, she has this long lilac tinted black shiny hair that cascades down her back and blows in the wind like something out of a magazine, but my hair is thick and rough, not to mention the color of a fire truck, and just got knotted and started looking more like dread locks than the beautiful flowing locks I was hoping for. Needless to say I cut it off, I figured looking more like an unkempt pixie was better than looking like an albino Jamaican with red hair. So right away people see my hair and know Kazekage Gaara is my dad. And as if that wasn't bad enough, I've got my mothers byakugan. So my eyes are the very pale violet color that identifies all members of the Hyuuga clan, and while its true that I lucked out and have the byakugan, (my sister didn't get it), I'm very unskilled in its use. My brother, Ichigo, is a genius with it, the teachers at the academy call him a prodigy and my mother has sent him to train with my Aunt Hanabi and her cousin Neji. I've always wanted to train with Neji, his control of the byakugan is legendary. Even people from the Snow village have heard of him, and they hadn't even heard of the Rokudaime.

Neji's control over the byakugan is amazing, people from other villages sometimes think he's a myth that the Hyuuga clan made up to bring more prestige to the clan. Neji is the first branch member of the Hyuuga clan to become a leader of it, before him that was an impossibility. Originally my mother, Hinata, was to be the head of the clan. Neji's father was my grandfather's twin brother, and a branch member of the family. Because of this he'd been given a curse mark that allowed the main branch to cause him great pain or death if they chose to, in order to keep him beneath them. His main purpose was supposed to be to protect the main branch of the family. My mother loved her cousin Neji and wanted to set him free from the curse. She turned this practice on its head when she turned down the head position in the family to marry my father. I've heard that my grandfather was pissed as hell, he ordered her to come back and said she would be disowned if she didn't. My mother, the awesomely strong woman that she is, told him that she would only come back if he removed the curse mark from her cousin's forehead.

Uncle Neji, I call him my uncle even though he's not because he asked me to and I can't refuse him anything, plus it feels more like he's my mother's brother than anything else, was not aware any of this was going on. Hei had been in Cloud country with my Aunt Ino, before she was actually my aunt, on a mission to retrieve the two tailed Jinchiriki, and only knew what happened because Ino noticed the mark on his forehead had disappeared. My grandfather wanted my mother to come back so badly he'd given in to her wishes and removed the mark. When she returned my mother took up her position as head of the family and used it to change the whole family structure. She made it so there would always be two heads of the family, so that there could never be a dictator-like head of the family again, and she banished the practice of cursing family members. She also deigned that the heads of the clan should be those who had the greatest control of the byakugan, rather then someone who had just been born into it. As a result of this my mother's sister, my Aunt Hanabi, and my Uncle Neji, became the heads of the Hyuuga clan, and my mother married my father and moved to Suna.

I'm actually glad my mother moved to Suna. Konoha is a pretty place and I do like the trees and forest, but the land of Sand is truly my home. When I'm in Konoha camping in the woods I dream about the sand dunes of Suna. I know its hot and dry there, but its also really beautiful. There is nothing better than watching the sun as it rises over the mountains of sand lighting the sky brilliant pinks and oranges . I really miss Suna when I'm in fire country, but it would all be worth it if some day I got to train with my Uncle Neji. I get so jealous of Ichigo sometimes, I know I shouldn't but its hard not to, when he gets to do the one thing I desire more than anything else.

I'm excited though. I'm hoping I can fulfill my dream and get my uncle to train me soon. In three weeks we'll be going on another retreat, and we always have a competition that lasts the whole time we're there. We get broken up into ten teams of four and compete all week. Each member of the winning team gets a set of shuriken with all of their teammates names carved into the blades. I know that doesn't seem too amazing but my Aunt Tenten is the one who makes them. She is the greatest weapons expert in all of both Suna and Konoha, and its said that she makes the finest armaments in the five nations. People would pay untold sums of money for just one shuriken if she was its creator, and the winners of the contest each get a whole set. Yet that is not why I'm most excited, I'm most excited because I plan to ask Uncle Neji if I can be on his team. If I'm on his team than I'll finally get the chance to train with him that I've been waiting for. Man, I am so excited. I can not wait for this summer's retreat.


	2. Sayuri

_Sayuri_

Tomorrow my parents are going to another one of those stupid retreats. I completely hate these things. I get that my dad wants to spend time with the rest of the Bojan, he doesn't get to see them half as much as he would like to and they are some of his most precious people, but I don't understand why I always have to go too. I always get stuck in a tent with my whiney ass cousin Naoko. She has to be the biggest loser ever, and she follows me around the whole damn time. I get no break from her whatsoever, its like the second we get there I've got the biggest pimple you've ever seen and no amount of Clearasil or Noxzema is going to get rid of it until we get home. Nobody else will put up with her for that long, not even her own brother and sister will volunteer to hang out with her. Hell, I wouldn't even put up with her, except that the last time I was mean to her I got caught.

It was at the summer retreat last year. Ryo and Ryuu, the best looking twins Suna or Konoha has to offer, had asked me to go out on the lake with them in their parents boat. I know what you're thinking, why would adult trust their 13 year old sons with anything as expensive at a boat, but it's totally not like that at all. Tenten and Kankouro's boat was in actuality little more than a glorified canoe. It was wider and had more seats then a canoe, and was far less likely to tip over, not that it would matter since we're all shinobi and can walk on water, but it certainly was nothing to write home about, we even had to row it, there wasn't even an engine, so there was very little we could do to damage this thing. Anyway, back to my story, the twins asked me to go out on the boat, and I of course said yes, since they are so totally cute. Side note-I am definitely kissing one of them on this years trip.

I start to leave with Ryuu and Ryo when I notice that Naoko is following us. I tried to pretend I didn't see her and hoped she would just catch a clue and realize I didn't want her to come, well it didn't happen. We kept walking and she kept following, eventually Ryuu pulled me over to the side, I'll admit that at first I thought he was going to try to kiss me because he was leaning in so close but he was really just getting close enough that I would hear him when he whispered, "Does she really have to come?"

"Yeah, sorry," I rolled my eyes and frowned so he'd know that it wasn't really what I wanted either.

When we got out onto the lake I started being a little flippant with her, well if I'm being honest maybe I was actually being a little mean. I started talking up all my accomplishments and bragging about how much control I was learning over the byakugan, and than I started asking her about her own. I know she doesn't do well in school and I know that her byakugan is one of the weakest in the whole clan, so I knew it would make her uncomfortable, maybe I was being more than just a little mean. Naoko is almost always at the bottom of our class, and it's a source of embarrassment for her but at the time I didn't care. It wasn't my fault she did poorly in school, and Ryo & Ryuu are her cousins, not mine, she should have felt more comfortable with them that I did, not less.

Unfortunately for me my dad had been watching us from the shore. One thing I can say about my dad with confidence is that he's completely overprotective of me. Seriously, sometimes its ridiculous. Anyway, he had been spying on us in the boat because he wanted to make sure I wasn't kissing either of the twins, apparently he's sure they are going to be "lecherous , just like their father was," whatever that means. Anyway, my damn father was watching us from the lake shore and just happened to be using his super sonic hearing to listen to our conversation. Why did it have to be my dad who has hearing like a dog?

When we got back to the camp he all pulls me aside to let me have it. "Sayuri I don't ever want to see you do that to your cousin again. How do you think your Aunt Hinata would feel if she knew you were doing your best to make Naoko feel stupid in front of her family? You better never do anything like that again. Inuzukas are known for their allegiance and you didn't show any. Loyalty to family and friends is the code of the Inuzuka, and today you went out of your way to break that code. I was ashamed to have you as my daughter today, and I never ever thought I would feel that way."

I love my dad so much, and hearing him say that to me was the most painful thing I've ever felt. I always want him to be proud of me and up until that moment he always had been. Having him be ashamed of me made me feel like crap. I'd never felt that low before and I haven't since. My dad has been at every thing I've ever done, cheering me on and supporting my every goal. Like when I was in the academy and I was in the spelling bee, it was down to the final two contestants, me and my cousin Hoshi. Everyone in the audience was quiet, until it was my turn, my dad started yelling, "Go Sayuri!! Kick her ass! Don't let Neji's kid beat you!!"

Then I heard my mother, "Kiba! Sit down, and stop yelling. You're embarrassing our little girl."

My dad slumped back into his seat looking forlorn. It had never crossed his mind that his cheering would embarrass me, in his head he thought I would want him there cheering for me, because when he was doing something he always wanted someone there to cheer for him. He looked so sorry that I felt bad for him, and at that moment I knew I had to win for him. If I won he would forget that he'd embarrassed me because he'd only be able to think about how happy he was that I'd won. I did win, and my uncle Neji congratulated me. My dad was grinning from ear to ear, and my mom had to restrain him from rubbing it in my uncle's face that Hoshi had not been the victor. That was one of the best moments in my life, having my dad so proud of me, it was almost as good as the day I graduated the academy and became a gennin.

In contrast that day at the lake was one of the worst moments in my life. So now I focus on never causing my father shame again. At every retreat I make sure I take Naoko with me everywhere I go and I make every effort I can to help her fit in. I don't know if its working but I know my dad is proud of me and that's all that matters. Just because I smile and parade around with Naoko during these retreats doesn't mean I like going to them. They still always suck, and I still spend most of the trips wishing I was back in the Hyuuga compound taking care of my Aunt Hinata's bird sanctuary, but at least now when I go I always see my dad smile at me.

The thing that bugs me the most about these trips though is not that they are usually extremely boring, or that I have to be nice to Naoko the whole time, or that there is no running water, no, the thing that bugs me the most about these trips is the questions I always have to answer when we get back. It never fails, every time we get back from a retreat I have to answer tons of stupid questions.

The Bojan is like the most famous group of shinobi ever. More people have heard of the Bojan than the legendary sennin or even the Yellow Flash. So every time we go on a retreat the shinobi at the academy want to know everything.

It's not that I mind talking about the trip, I would talk about the trip to anyone who wanted to know about it, but that's not what they want to know about. They really only want to hear about the Bojan. And I've found that they don't even really want to hear about the Bojan, what they want to hear about is fairy tales. I've found that when it comes to the Bojan, sometimes the myths are better than the facts. I've seen it over and over again. The person who asks the question is like completely obsessed with a particular member of the Bojan and they can't tell the difference between fact and fiction. Sometimes they are so invested in the fiction that the truth can devastate them. For example, after our winter retreat this guy Liu was waiting for me at my locker to ambush me with questions about my Uncle Gaara, this kid was a fanatic, he rattled off facts about the Kazekage like his birthday, his favorite color, the date Akatsuki removed Shukaku, and a whole bunch of other things, some that even I didn't know, the point is he was a fanatic, he had even made up his own trading cards of Gaara. I tried to just ignore him but he kept talking so I then tried to get away and brush him off, but then he said, "I heard the kazekage uses his sand to grind the fur and skin off live deer so he can have bloody really fresh meat for breakfast, did you eat it too?"

"What!?" I just about spit out the water I was drinking. I just stared at him, I didn't know what to say. That was absurd, just freaking ridiculous, my uncle Gaara was not a psycho, well anymore, according to my grandfather when he was my age Gaara had been a little psychotic, nobody in the family talks about it anymore, but apparently the rest of the village still did. I couldn't let people keep thinking horrible things like that about my uncle. "No, I had bacon and eggs, and my uncle doesn't do that anyway. He had Cocoa Puffs for breakfast every morning."

Liu looked distraught. His fantasies of a blood thirsty hero eating raw meat for breakfast to keep killer urges at bay had been drowned in the milky waves of my uncle's Cocoa Puffs. He almost couldn't believe it. His life long hero couldn't possibly eat normal cereal for breakfast. Sadly this reaction was incredibly common. I saw it all the time. People's fantasies are almost always more interesting than reality. This crap was another reason I was dreading this next retreat. I'd rather not go, than I could avoid the barrage of ridiculous questions that awaited my return.


	3. Tetsu

_Tetsu_

This week has been one of the best ever,. First, I finally graduated from the ninja academy, and I did it on my first try, second I found out that next week we're going on another retreat, I have so much fun on those things, I can' wait. I had been worried that I wouldn't be able to get out of the academy so passing was a complete relief. My substitution jutsu fails almost all of the time, and up until last week I'd never been able to produce a bunshin that didn't look like it was going to collapse into a puddle on the floor. I really needed help but I didn't want to ask my dad.

I know my dad would have helped me but I didn't want to let him know I needed it. He's always been so perfect at everything. I didn't want to tell him that his only son couldn't even do a simple substitution jutsu. Instead, I decided to ask my mom. I told her I was having a lot of trouble with my bunshins, and that I thought I was going to fail the exam. She just smiled at me and shook her head. "Tetsu, you're not going to fail. There has never been a single Uchiha who didn't graduate the academy on their first attempt. You won't be any different."

Was she freaking crazy? I stared in disbelief. I didn't even know what to say, so I just walked away. I know that she only meant to cheer me up and that her comments were supposed to make me feel better, but they had had the complete opposite effect. I realize that I should be honored to have been born into the prestigious Uchiha clan, but sometimes it seems that it's more trouble than its worth. Especially at times like this. Talk about pressure, would I be the first Uchiha in hundreds of years to fail the exam? Not only would my parents be disappointed but the whole village would know and they would all talk. I could hear it now, "look there goes that useless Uchiha," you know he's the first Uchiha ever to fail the graduation exam," "what a loser, his father must be so disappointed." I had felt completely ill. My mother had completely blown off my request for help just because I'm an Uchiha, like I should just go up to Iruka Sensei and say, "Let's just forget about this test Sensei. I am after all an Uchiha, and that means I'm going to pass anyway. So lets just skip the pleasantries and you just tell everyone I pass."

I had no idea what to do. With my unwillingness to ask my father for help, and my mother's delusional view of the world I seemed to have run out of options. I went down to the family pier to sit down and think. My legs are still short so my feet dangled just above the water while I stared out over the small lake. This was where my father had taught me the Katon Goukakyuu no Jutsu, the only jutsu I was actually able to do. My dad says it's a really difficult jutsu to master, but I picked it up really quickly. Maybe it's because my dad is such a good teacher, I really wish I wasn't afraid of letting him down. If I wasn't I'm sure he could teach me what I needed to learn. But I just couldn't bring myself to do it. So I sat on the pier worrying about what I was going to do. I peered down through the glass like surface of the water and noticed the giant koi swimming to the surface with their mouths gaping and I wished I'd remembered to bring some fish food down with me. The koi are always hungry. I'm sure if they didn't live underwater I'd be able to hear their stomachs growling. Maybe even as loud as Uncle Naruto's. Uncle Naruto! That was it, I could ask my uncle to help me. He would be happy to do it. He was always on me to come spend time with him and Sasuke, and this would be right up his alley, he loves showing off his jutus.

I ran back to the house, where my mother was busy buffing the scratches out of her glasses. My mom is a complete klutz. Sometimes I find it hard to believe she's even a ninja at all, let alone one that was good enough for the great Uchiha Sasuke to search out for team Hebi.

"Mom, I'm going to Uncle Naruto's," I said. "I'll be back before nine. Love you."

"Wait just a minute, young man," my mother said as she started walking toward the kitchen. "Give this to your uncle. There's enough in there for the three of you. I swear on the will of fire, he and Sasuke haven't eaten anything but ramen since Yugito left last week."

"Mom, this weighs a ton." I whined as she handed me a giant pot. "How much food are you giving us? There are only three of us."

"Quit whining and bring it to your uncle's. I'll see you later." She leaned over and kissed my forehead.

On my way to my uncle's house I started hating my mother. My mom is one of the best shinobi in the world when it comes to teleportation jutsus. She's so good that shinobi from across the five nations come to Konoha hoping that she will teach them what she knows. Unfortunately for them my mother is a deep believer in hard work. She spent years upon years working hard to perfect her jutsus, even training with the evil snake sennin Orochimaru to learn everything she could, and there is absolutely no way that she is going to just give away her techniques to people who haven't earned it. My mom thinks hard work is the best teacher, which is probably why I was lugging a twenty five pound pot halfway across town when she could have easily teleported me and the stew right into my uncle's kitchen.

When I complained to my mom she always says she's just making me stronger and one day I'll thank her for it. I don't know if she's right about that or not, but I certainly won't be thanking her anytime soon. Especially since the small handles on the pot forced me to carry it with just my fingertips, and they were cramped so badly I could have sworn they were about to fall off. When at long last I saw the hideous bright orange siding of my uncle's house (when he became Hokage he wasn't allowed to wear his old uniform and he'd insisted his house be painted in tribute to it) I let out a whoop of joy and sprinted the rest of the way there,

"Konichiwa, Tetsu!" Bright blue cat shaped eyes stared at me in elation from behind a platinum blonde mop of hair. I was barely able to set down the pot before my cousin Sasuke had me in a giant bear hug, explaining how happy he was to see me.

"It's been so long since you came to visit. I've missed you so much. I'm really excited to show you my new jutsu. Its sooo amazing, Believe it!"

I chuckled to myself, he may have been named after my father, but Uzumaki Sasuke was almost a clone of my uncle Naruto. To be fair though, Sasuke isn't actually related to us. My uncle, Uzumaki Naruto, the sixth Hokage of the Hidden Leaf village, isn't my father's brother by birth, though my dad says that doesn't matter because Naruto is his brother in all the ways that count. According to my mom and dad Naruto saved my dad from the darkness and is the reason I was even born.

Way before I was born my father left Konoha to live and train with the missing Nin, Orochimaru, the legendary evil snake sennin, so he could become powerful enough to kill his brother by birth, Uchiha Itachi, who had slaughtered our whole clan. My father had vowed to one day have his vengeance and destroy Itachi. When he left Konoha my uncle Naruto and their friends Shikamaru, Kiba, Neji, Chouji, and Lee tried to stop him and bring him home. All of them almost died and my dad almost killed my Uncle Naruto, and on top of that, they failed. My father had refused to come back. Eventually my father killed Orochimaru and set off to find and kill his brother. That was when my dad met my mom. He went looking for her and two others to create team Hebi. Originally my father couldn't stand my mother, he said she was obnoxious and annoying, and she kept trying to seduce him every time they were alone. Anyway, team Hebi sought out Itachi and by default, his group the Akatsuki. My dad chased Itachi to the back of the mansion they had found Akatsuki hiding in, while the rest of Hebi stayed to occupy and distract the other members of Akatsuki.

My dad said he and Itachi fought for what seemed like hours. Both of them were so evenly matched that neither could emerge victorious. Finally, Itachi used a forbidden jutsu that paralyzed my father's legs and he collapsed on the floor. Then, in what would prove to be a fatal mistake Itachi started telling my father how weak he was, and how he'd always known his little brother would never amount to anything and would never be able to defeat him, and that if their clan could see them now they would be so disappointed in him for not even being able to avenge them. Unbeknownst to both my dad and Itachi, my uncle Naruto, Aunt Sakura, and Uncle Kakashi had also hunted down Akatsuki in search of Itachi. Because even after my father betrayed them and even tried to kill them Uzumaki Naruto and Haruna Sakura loved my father like a brother and could never give up on him.

While Sakura and Kakashi joined my mother and the rest of team Hebi to keep Akatsuki at bay, my uncle Naruto continued searching the house for my father. In the original attack to gain entrance to the compound he had been badly injured so when he found my father he too was unable to use any of his most powerful attacks. When he entered the room the room that held the two brothers he found Itachi had his back to him. Naruto hid behind a pile of rubble, a result of the recent battle, and made use of the hand sign language he and my dad had made up when they were younger to communicate with one another during Kakashi sensei's long lectures.

"Use the Katon Ryuuga No Jutsu," Naruto signed.

My father shook his head in refusal, "He's too strong for that."

"Do it, just trust me," Naruto signed back.

This time my dad listened, "Katon Ryuuka no Jutsu!"

Immediately my uncle followed with the wind blade, "Kaze no Yaiba!"

With that my father's fire dragon tripled in size practically filling the room. The giant fire lizard snaked out a flaming tongue that wrapped around Itachi's ankle, picking him up it flipped him in the air and dropping him into its flaming gaping maw. When the jutsu ended and the flames subsided all that was left was Itachi's charred remains. My dad looked up at Naruto and asked, "What the hell did you do?"

Naruto had smiled at him. "What I was always meant to. Supported you. Naturally you have an affinity to fire and I have an affinity to wind. In the chakra circle wind feeds the fire, and that's what I did. I used my wind jutsu to feed your fire jutsu and make it strong enough to defeat him. I always knew we were supposed to do this together Sasuke, I just couldn't get you to believe me. Now it's over though. Now you can come home."

But my dad didn't go home then either. He said that everyone in the village thought he was a traitor and that he would never be accepted. My aunt and uncle were heart broken when they returned home to the village without my dad. A few years later my dad was traveling, and he noticed Konoha was nearby, he knew he was no longer in the bingo book and decided to stop by and visit his old teammates. That's when he found out Naruto was married, it was also the first time my dad met Sasuke.

Meeting Sasuke changed my father's world. Naruto knew everything about my father, every bad thing he had done, every person he had hurt, and every heart he had broken. If Naruto could know all this and still love him enough to name his first child after him, then maybe other people could love him too. Seeing baby Sasuke gave my dad hope. For the first time since the Uchiha massacre my dad had thoughts that the future held promise, and for the first time in what felt like forever he wanted to be part of it.

From that day on my dad lived in Konoha and had a family again. His old team, Cell 7, was reunited and from that moment he called Naruto, Kakashi, and Sakura his brothers and sister. Naruto had married Yugito, the vessel of the two tailed cat demon, Sakura, Genma, the proctor from their first Chunin exam, and Kakashi married Anko, the scary snake jounin that had been Orochimaru's student, and my dad started to feel a little lonely. He decided he wanted to find that kind of love too. After a series of failed dates it turned out that the only woman he could stand to be around was my obnoxious and annoying (his words, not mine) mother. He traveled to sound country, asking everyone he passed if they knew anything about Karin until he found her. My mother of course was still in love with him and the two of them returned to Konoha and married that fall. Two years later I was born. My father named me Tetsu, meaning peace, because he'd finally found it.


	4. Sasuke

_Sasuke_

When I first saw Tetsu coming down the street lugging a giant pot I was totally psyched. Not only would I be able to show off my new jutsu but I was pretty sure I could figure out a way to make sure my cousin was wearing whatever it was that was in that pot. Hehehe… I hope its something gooey and sticky, or maybe even smelly. I rubbed my hands together and snickered, just imagining Tetsu covered in fishy gumbo or eel paste caused me to grin maniacally.

THUMP! Something hard hit the back of my had almost knocking me off my perch on the roof of our house.

"Whatever you're thinking…..just NO! Its not an option, I am forbidding it. Tetsu hardly comes over anymore and I'm sure your practical jokes do nothing to help that. Save the pranks for Hayate. He just thinks he's so cool. Sakura-chan's kid is just too much, he's such a bastard," my father clenched his fist and shook his hand. I truly find it comical, my dad has some crazy rivalry going on with a 13 year old, its just ridiculous.

My dad says he can't stand Hayate, but I know he really cares about him, a lot. Sakura and my mom were pregnant at the same time, Hayate and I were actually born only seven hours apart. I was born first, that's how I got to be names after Uncle Sasuke (I am so lucky, Uncle Sasuke is so cool!). My dad and Sakura both knew they were having boys and had argued up until both Sakura and my mom had both gone into labor, over whose son would be named after their lost teammate. At that point my mother was pissed as all hell. There she was, in labor, in like tons of pain, and my dad was in the other room fighting with Sakura. We'll just say you should never get a jinchiriiki experiencing excruciating contractions angry with you, especially if you're her husband. My dad, a little worse for ware, compromised with Sakura that whichever baby was born first would bear the name. Aunt Sakura admitted to me that she only agreed because she was sure Hayate would be born first, seeing as how she'd started four hours before my mom. Alas, Hayate proved more stubborn about coming into the world than I was, and I got named after the coolest guy in our whole village. I'm not knocking Hayate's name though. Gecko Hayate was my Uncle Genma's best friend, he died defending our village when Orochimaru attacked. His name is engraved on the hero stone. I know a lot of kids whose names are there. I guess that's a testament to how many Konoha shinobi will never forget their comrades. My dad says you should never forget a friend and that if you do, you're no better than trash. He said he learned that from someone wise, but I've met all of my dad's friends and none of them seem all that wise. Even Shikamaru, the legendary strategist seems like a lazy slacker.

Some people, mainly idiots from my school, think I'm so lucky because I'm the sixth hokage's son and I get to meet all of the hero's from our village, and even some from other villages, personally but I don't know about that. When you think of someone as a hero and you look up to them a lot you probably don't want to know how human they really are. For instance, growing up, while I was in the academy I heard all these stories about the great copy cat ninja and his amazing battle prowess. I was in awe, here was a guy I could try to be like, a guy to look up to. Then my parents decided to start these retreats with their Bojan buddies and I got to meet the great copy can ninja, Hatake Kakashi. Imagine my disappointment when instead of the swashbuckling hero I was expecting I got disinterested pervert who has never been on time for anything, he's always too busy reading pornography. Don't misunderstand, Kakashi is a great guy, and I do still look up to him, just not in the way I did before. That's happened to a lot of the kids I know. That's probably because all of my dad's friends are talked about in school, even my dad is, so the first time we kids all got together we were all in for a heap disappointment. The Kazekage had apparently been telling his son, Ichigo, about how great Konoha's hokage was, and how he'd saved him from a life of loneliness and all this other crap, so when we got on that first retreat Ichigo spent the first two days following my dad around in awe. Shortly after that my goofball of a father was showing off his greatness….and slipped on a pile of dog shit landing in a mud puddle that he had created himself to show of some jutsu he'd made up. Hysterics ensued but Ichigo looked devastated. And that's how most of us were at that first retreat. When you find out that your heroes are just human it's a hard swallow.

Now its different of course, now we all know what to expect. I also know that I don't look up to any of them any less, I just accept that nobody is perfect. Sometimes I think the things they've done are even more heroic now that I know them personally. The stories about my dad are proof enough of that. My dad seems to be a bumbling idiot sometimes, and yet I know that he's fought some of the most dangerous guys out there. He's never backed down from a fight and he's saved thousands of lives, knowing that he still carries a wallet that looks like a frog and is a klutz makes it more amazing that he's brave enough to put his life in danger over and over again.

My dad is also a really big show off. So it was no surprise to me that when Tetsu came over asking my dad to help him with his cloning jutsu that he was ecstatic. Clones are my dad's specialty. He was almost glowing in anticipation to show Tetsu his technique.

"You need help with your clones?! Don't you worry Tetsu, I, Uzumaki Naruto, will show you how its done. I am a great master of the kage bunshin technique," he bellowed.

I almost felt bad for Tetsu, he had no idea what he had gotten himself into. I on the other hand knew we were in for an evening of a thousand blonde idiots running around and barking orders at poor Tetsu, while he would probably just get confused, as one often does when more then one person tells you what to do. We went out back to my dad's persona training area, and my dad started explaining the basics of the jutsu to my cousin.

"Sasuke!" my dad yelled, and really wished I'd been quicker in my attempt to run away. "Show your cousin how to do a basic bunshin. I would do it myself but I have too much chakra and I don't want to embarrass your cousin by being too amazing."

Oh man is my dad full of himself. Like Tetsu would think he could make a hundred clones just because my dad can. Get real dad. He can so totally be a pain in the ass. But I got up and performed the seals, creating a single bunshin to show my cousin.

"What?! Only one bunshin! You can't really be my son!" my dad yelled in exasperation.

"You said a basic bunshin, this is a basic bunshin," I said. "If you wanted to show him tons of clones why didn't you just do it yourself?"

"Ugh…If you want something done right you've got to do it yourself, my dear Tetsu," my father whispered to my cousin.

I sighed, and released my bunshin. This was so what I mean. My dad has to be the worst show off in the history of the world. He could easily have created one clone, or even five if he wanted to get his point across. When he was younger his chakra control wasn't that good and he might have accidentally created fifty clones instead of one, but now he's got it down. Which made the next display even more groan inducing.

"Kage Bunshin no Jutsu!" my dad yelled, and our back yard filled with about five hundred copies of my dad. To my cousin's credit, he just stood there looking confused, like what was he supposed to do. Just watching my dad make a ton of bunshin is not going to make someone else be able to do it. I learned that the hard way. When I was younger I really thought I would instantly be able to make like a hundred clones just because I had seen my father do it, boy was I surprised when it took me forever and a day to even make one, and its still not my best jutsu, some things are just not passed down to the next generation.

Then the real fun started. It was almost as funny as if I'd gotten to spill that pot onto my cousin. Now, my cousin is standing in the middle of at least five hundred bunshin, and they are all staring at him. The first one finally gets annoyed and kicks him in the ass, "What are you doing? Try making a clone."

"Oh, o-okay," my cousin stuttered. He formed the seals and created the most pitiful looking clone I'd ever seen. It's clothes appeared to be melting off, and when it tried to speak it sounded like an old drunk man.

"Ish thish whatch use waaass lookinn for?" the melting clone asked.

I just watched, knowing it could only get better. And it definitely did.

"That is terrible," one of my father's clones said.

"What the heck is that?" asked another.

"Get rid of that, I think its in pain."

"You made the hand signals wrong." "You should have yelled kage bunshin." "Next time concentrate more on your chakra flow." "If you visualize what you want the clone to look like it will help."

All the clones were now yelling advice at poor Tetsu, while he futilely tried to accommodate all of their requests, and continued spitting out crappy bunshin after crappy bunshin. At this point I couldn't help but laugh. It was one of the funniest things I'd seen in a while.

"No, no, you've got it all wrong. You're trying to do you're hand signals too fast." "Slow down!" "No, you're not going fast enough." "You're using too much chakra." "Maybe you should close your eyes, we might be distracting you." "You need to think more, you need to use more chakra."

The barrage of ridiculous advice continued to pile upon my poor little cousin, and if I hadn't been having such a good time watching the show I would have stopped it long before my aunt Sakura showed up.

"Naruto! What the hell are you doing?" Sakura yelled into the sea of Uzumaki Naruto's filling our yard.

Poof! Suddenly only Tetsu and my dad stood in the yard, my dad wearing a nervous grin and self consciously tucking his hair behind his ears.

"Oh nothing, Sakura-chan. I'm just showing Tetsu here how to make a bunshin, he's worried he won't pass his test at the academy," my father replied sheepishly.

"You think that was helpful, the poor kids head is spinning," my aunt scolded my father. "Tetsu, if you want help with your bunshin technique come over to my house and I'll explain in a way that you can actually understand."

"Sakura-chan! I am the Kage Bunshin expert here, not you. You can not take my student from me, just when he needs me the most," my father argued.

"I know you are the Kage Bunshin expert, however you are the worst teacher I have ever seen, and I'm doing him a favor by taking him."

I'll never tell my father this, but I completely agree. While my dad can complete almost any jutsu himself, he can barely teach even a basic substitution jutsu to anyone else. Jaraiya, one of the legendary sennin, once told me that its because my dad couldn't listen when he was a child. My dad learned all his jutsu's by practicing them all hundreds of times, without actually trying to figure out why they were working. My aunt Sakura on the other hand, learned exactly the opposite way, she knows exactly how a jutsu works and therefore can execute it with far less practice then my dad. Tetsu was lucky she'd come to save him, evidenced by the fact that I heard he passed his exam the next week. My dad pretends its because of his help, but Tetsu and I know better.


	5. Ichigo

_A/N: I don't own Naruto and every time I write that it makes me sad. I haven't written anything on this story in a while and I'm sorry, but I'm not sure people actually like it, so if you do, could you please leave a review? Thanks for your time, and I hope you enjoy this chapter._

_Ichigo_

I've always has mixed feelings about summer. On one hand when summer comes I get to go back to Suna, which I know is a desert, I've heard all the crap, its hot, its dry, it's a barren wasteland devoid of life, a completely terrible place that nobody in their right mind would want to go, but hey, its my home. Some people, well I guess I could actually go as far as to say most people, hate the oppressive heat and desolate landscape of Sunagakure, but not me, I love it. Can't get enough of it. I was born here, I grew up here, and it's a part of me, a really big part. While its true that the desert is a dangerous place, in my opinion it's far safer then the woods of Konoha. When you're traveling in the desert there isn't really anywhere to hide, you could dig a hole, or possibly find a cactus or rock to hide behind, if you're really lucky maybe you know an earth jutsu that will make it so you can hide beneath the endless ocean of sand, but your choices are limited, and it's very difficult to hide your tracks in the sand. So when I think about traveling in Suna I always feel a little better. When the foliage of Konoha gives way to the sand of the desert I know I'm home, and it feels great. Its pretty hard to fall into an ambush in Suna, especially if you've grown up here, and I guess it doesn't hurt that I have the byakugan (and that I'm pretty freakin great at using it). In the forests of Konoha it's a completely different story, assassins can easily find hundreds of places to hide in the limitless foliage of the fire country. I don't want anyone to think I'm a coward, I would never run from a fight, but an ambush is different, and as the son of the Sand's Kazekage, not to mention a possessor of the coveted Hyuga bloodline limit, I'm constantly a target, so I tend to get a little more worried about that kinda stuff then maybe other shinobi would.

There are other reasons I love Suna, reasons far less tactical in nature, though they are the ones I rarely share. I try to keep it tough, you know, I don't want people thinking I'm a pansy. But in all honesty, the number one reason I miss Suna when I'm not here is that my parents are here. When I'm in Konoha I miss them, a lot, far more then I'd ever let anyone know. My father is the Kazekage of Suna, which means he's the strongest shinobi in the whole village, and like really important to the people of the wind country, so he almost never gets to come to Konoha to visit, and when he does it's usually because he's there for diplomatic reasons, so he doesn't get to spend much time with me and my sisters. My mother gets to come visit a bit more frequently, she is originally from Konoha, and even though she doesn't tell my father I know she'd like to spend more time here. The problem is that when she's here she is crazy uncomfortable. My sister's and I stay in the Hyuga compound with grandfather when we're here. He's totally chill now especially since my sister and I are his favorite grandchildren, but apparently before Neji and my aunt Hanabi became the joint Hyuga rulers he was some insane kind of asshole. I think I heard Neji call him a tyrant a few times when we're training together. But anyway he used to make a lot of demands on my mother and though he doesn't anymore he still makes my mother nervous. My grandfather always insists my mother stays with us in his home, but the whole time she ridiculously tense. My mom has to be the sweetest woman in the world, it's amazing to me that she's a shinobi, let alone one amazing enough to be a member of the Bojan, I can't imagine her hurting anyone, she's very soft spoken and often shy, but when she's around my grandfather Hiashi, it gets taken to a whole new level. The man can move my mother to tears with a look and she often stutters and appears incompetent in his presence. When I see them interact I really have no idea how she managed to stand up to him all those years ago. Maybe it was because she was all the way in Suna and had all that distance between them. My sister Minori and I have this theory that it was my dad that gave her the strength to do it. Who wouldn't be confident knowing Sabaku no Gaara has their back? My dad is like incredibly strong, there are only two people who have ever beaten my dad in battle, one of them is the old Hokage of Konoha and the other only won because he chose the people of Suna over his own well being, so I feel pretty confident when I say my dad is really pretty bad ass. So anyway, Minori and I totally think its my dad that made my mother so strong, not to say that she doesn't have an inner strength that's all her own, but when going against my grandfather she needs to borrow a little sometimes. I definitely think he was at least her inspiration, my mom draws courage from those around her, she always says we're stronger together than apart, and my dad has courage to spare, he fears no one. So there you have it, the thing I miss most about Suna is my family. My sisters are in Konoha with me but we all entered the academy during different years so we didn't get the luxury of being on the same genin team like my father, Uncle Kankuro, and Aunt Temari did. While I'll admit that sometimes I'm grateful not to be on the same team as Naoko, it would have been awesome to be on a team with Minori, we get along really well and I do wish I could spend more time with her. But anyway my point is that even though they live with me in Konoha I rarely get to spend much time with either of my sisters. So being is Suna means I get to be with my family.

Most of my aunts and uncles line in Suna too, and they're really important to me too. They helped raise me, and made me who I am, so that definitely adds to the appeal of Sunagakure. Not to mention people have a lot more respect for me in Suna. Probably because everyone in my home town knows who I am and who my father really is. In Konoha they know my dad, Gaara, is the Kazekage, but they also hear all these stories about him when he was younger. When he was young, my father was the human container for the demon Shukaku, which though it made him the village's ultimate weapon, it also made him really unstable and dangerous. He killed a lot of people and was scary to be around, my uncle Kankuro once admitted, while under the influence of two bottles of Sake, that one day when they were young my dad threw him against a wall using the sand and was going to kill him with a sand coffin, my aunt Temari managed to stop him, but my uncle admitted to being so scared he crapped his pants. I almost pissed myself when I heard that, my uncle Kankuro likes everyone to think he's the coolest guy ever. My uncle Kiba calls him pompous and arrogant but his wife, my aunt Tenten, says its just confidence. But anyway, the kids in Konoha, depending on who their parents are, still think of my father as a killing machine and they have all these wacky stories that they pass around as fact. I've learned to shrug them off and I don't let them bother me anymore, which is something since when I first got to Konoha I was in fights every day, but I still don't like everyone to think those things about my father. In Suna they don't say those things, they respect my dad and the things he has done and sacrificed for them. What can I say, the sand village is home.

But like I said before, I have mixed feelings about the summer. Sure I'm home in Suna, but there are some things I miss about Konoha while I'm away. My top reason being my best friend, and a member of my squad, Hatake Ren. She lives in Konoha, obviously, and when I'm not there I miss her a lot. She's my confidant, co-conspirator, ally, and rival, she pushes me to be a better ninja and I hope I do the same for her. The days I spend in fire country are almost all spent with her. Even the ones we don't train on we usually spend together. We just get along incredibly well, we do everything together. My last birthday I turned 15, it was right around the time Minori got betrothed and everyone was in a tizzy, which is a whole nother story, so my big day kinda got overlooked by everyone but Ren. She remembered, and she really tried to do something nice for me. She had spent weeks with Yuhi Kurenai learning a genjutsu that would turn the garden in the Hyuga compound into a desert. I really commend her for this; genjutsu is definitely not one of her strengths. The problem was that she hadn't told anyone about her plan, mostly because it was supposed to be a surprise, but with the craziness surrounding my sister's engagement, the Hyuga personal guard destroyed the jutsu and had her in custody before I even got to see it. She'd told me to meet her in the garden for my surprise, and to be honest I really was surprised when I saw her standing there, surrounded by the guards, wearing shackles, with her eyes wide in shock trying not to giggle, which she does when she's nervous. I quickly sorted it out and got her out of her chains, but she was devastated that her surprise hadn't even been seen by my eyes and she didn't have enough chakra left to do it again.

A lot of people think Ren's rude and abrasive, but I don't think so. I can see how they might think it, but they just don't know her. Ren likes to tell you how it is, she'll call you on your bullshit, and she doesn't let anything slide. With Ren you always know where you stand, there's no ulterior motives and shady business. That's one of the things I admire most about her. When you're the son of the Kazekage it's hard to know who your real friends are, a lot of kids will pretend to be but it's only because they think they'll get something out of it, and with Ren that's not the case. Most of our classmates think we're dating because we spend so much time together, but there is nothing sexual between us. Our friendship is completely platonic. Even though at one time I had hoped it wouldn't be, besides being really awesome, Ren is really hot, and I thought it would be great if we could actually date. Who wouldn't want to date their smokin hot best friend? So I laid one on her when I walked her home one night, slipped her the tongue, held her cheek softly with my hand, tried to lay the romance on as thick as possible, and hoped for the best.

It wasn't a bad kiss, but it certainly didn't move mountains, and it wasn't what either of us wanted. No sparks at all, it was like kissing my sister, well what I imagine kissing my sister would be like, there's no way in hell I'd actually kiss my sister with tongue, not ever. Friends are what we are, and what we'll always be. And that's fine by me, so long as she's always part of my life. I really miss her like crazy when I'm in Suna, it's like I'm missing my right hand.

Another problem with the summer is my training. In the summer it becomes somewhat lax. When I'm in Konoha I train with my uncle Neji, the most skilled user of the byakugan in centuries. He and my aunt Hanabi are the two heads of the Hyuga clan, which means they are the two strongest Hyuga's in the whole clan, and when I train with him I just learn so much. In the summer I miss our sessions. My mother is very skilled with the byakugan and jyuuken but her style of fighting is very different from Neji's and my own. So while she can kick my ass repeatedly, fighting using her style only hinders my own. My sister Minori doesn't have the byakugan, she does have my father's exceptional control of the sand, so when we spar its pretty even, but she can't help me with my blood line limit because we're so different. My sister Naoko did luck out and get the byakugan, but to put it bluntly she sucks. If she hadn't been born with the byakugan she wouldn't have even been allowed to become a shinobi. Her control of our kekkei genkai is terrible. To be honest I have no idea how she managed to pass the chunnin exam and I'm pretty positive she'll never make it to jonin. I know I sound like a horrible older brother, but I'm not. I've spent countless hours with her trying to help her gain some kind of mastery over her abilities but I just don't think she has it in her. I don't mean that as a bad thing though, some people just weren't meant to be combat shinobi and I don't think Naoko is. Recently I've convinced her to try her hand at medical jutsu's, I figure her chakra control is good, she just has no speed, maybe she'd be better suited as a medic. She seemed excited at the possibility so I just hope I'm not the cause of any medical jutsu's gone terribly wrong, but needless to say, she's not the ideal sparring partner.

All that being said, I've been trying to decide whether or not I want to actually stay in Suna again for the summer. Technically, since I passed the jonin exam I should be going back to Suna permanently. As a sand shinobi my place is in Sunagakure however, my mother and father know of my mixed feelings and sympathize. As a result my dad used his position as Kazekage to help me out. He called up his good friend Uzumaki Naruto, former Hokage of Konoha, and asked him to speak with the current Hokage, Saratobi Konohamaru. Consequently I was offered a position as the liaison between the Suna and Konoha ninja academies. Nepotism at its finest. Trouble is, I'm not sure if I want to take it or not. My dad said it's not a big deal and I don't even have to rush my answer because the position only exists because of me. If I take it, great, but if I don't? Poof! There is no liaison. So here I am, stuck muddling it over and over again, while I relax in Suna. Just visiting my aunts and uncles, and helping Minori plan her wedding.

I did find out some good news this morning though. I had gone over to my uncle Kankuro's house for breakfast (my aunt Tenten makes the best gravy and biscuits ever), and they told me the summer retreat's coming up next week. My aunt always knows earlier then everyone else around here since she's the one who has to make the prize, but to her credit she never spills the beans until she's supposed to. Now I already knew the when the retreat was, but I had so much shit on my mind that I had completely forgotten. I've been so obsessed with this liaison thing, rightly so, seeing as how it's the biggest life decision I've had to make on my own since I was born, staying in Suna to be a shinobi has been my dream since I was old enough to know what a shinobi is, but doing that also means I probably won't see Konoha or Ren again for years, so yeah, it's a big deal.

The summer retreat is perhaps the best thing that happens in the summer, and you know what, it may actually be my favorite retreat of them all. Summer retreats are always so much more fun. Seeing as how the competitions in the summer are always more reliant on our skills as ninja. In the winter we're usually inside and you can't really be using jutsu's indoors, they tend to frown on the breaking of furniture and destruction of walls and ceilings when you're staying in a resort, the summer is different, then we're outside, and we can totally let loose. I revel in it. This year the retreat is being held in Kirigakure, the village hidden in the mist, and apparently it's going to be altogether different then it's been in the past. We usually do these smaller mini games, kind of like mini missions, that are all part of a larger competition that lasts the whole two weeks we're away. Generally each of our parents is responsible for organizing a game and the overall winning team's members each get a set of shuriken carved with their name and team name, made by the greatest weapons master in the five lands, my aunt Tenten. However, this year it's going to be different. Apparently Kumo's Raikage and Kiri's Mizukage have set up the whole thing, so nobody has any clue what the challenges are, which means nobody can have an advantage going into a mission, and its gonna be sick man. I so can't wait.

Usually I'm excited for the retreat, but this time I'm freakin inspired man. I was quick as hell on the uptake this year and managed to get the best team I've ever had. Ordinarily I get a pretty good team, well not counting last year when I somehow managed to get stuck on a team with my pretty much useless sister Naoko, Choji's seven year old daughter, Momo, who could barely throw a shuriken, and my mother, Sabaku no Hinata. Don't get the wrong idea, I don't think its bad to have my mom on my team, she's an amazing konoichi but because of my other two teammates she became way too overprotective. There was no way we could have won last year because my mom didn't even let us compete in half the games. Our team name was the Cowardly Ghosts, because we disappeared for all the dangerous missions and several times my sister and Momo burst into tears to get out of participating in the missions my mother had actually let us get involved in. That team was the reason that this year I mobilized. Back when I found out about the retreat about a month ago, I got on it and managed to assemble my most kick ass team to date.

First off, there's me, not to sound conceited but I'm pretty fuckin good. I graduated number one in my class, and behind Neji, my aunt Hanabi, and my mother, nobody can match my skill with the byakugan. Then there's Ren of course, not only does she have crazy speed and incredible senses of smell and hearing, but her dad recently finished teaching her his chidori, which legend has it he once used to cut through a bold of lightning, tell me that that's not the most awesome thing ever. Even better than all that is the fact that her mother contracted her to summon snakes. Her parents had some crazy big fight about it too, her dad, Kakashi, wanted her to have his summons, which is dogs, but Anko wasn't having it. I give Kakashi props for even starting an argument with her, that woman is scary, but to stop the argument Anko asked Ren which contract she wanted to sign, and when she answered "snakes" her mom summoned the contract right then and there before Kakashi could get her to change her mind. So now that Ren mastered her chakra she summons these huge bad ass snakes. So the team is me and Ren, then we both asked our dads to be on our team, and of course they said yes, and now we're teamed up with the "Copy Ninja" of Konoha and the Kazekage of Suna. As far as I'm concerned we're unbeatable, but truth be told I have no idea who is on any of the other teams. Even so, I'm totally psyched.

I came up with the team name all by myself. I'm saying that now because nobody else on the team likes it, not even a little. As a matter of fact they all hate it. I figure since my dad used to be a demon container and Ren's summons is the most evil of all the summoning animals, and both Kakashi and I have kekkei genkai that manifest in the eyes, we should call ourselves "Evil has Eyes." Nobody else thought so, but nobody likes to argue, so I won and that's our name.

Now all I can do is wait for this week to pass, so in addition to training my ass off, I'm helping Minori plan for her wedding, which is in about two months. Minori is only 16 years old, so you might be wondering why she's getting married. Well I'll tell you, it's actually a pretty funny story, well I guess that's subjective depending on who you're talking to. Well about three months ago my dad chose to add a new wing on to the Sunagakure museum. Up until then the museum was lousy, filled with different textures of sand, various cacti, and stuffed versions of desert wildlife; it could seriously bore you to tears. When you undoubtedly got stuck attending a school trip to the shit hole, because though our museum is shitty the Konoha elders concluded that it was still better then Konoha's non-existing one, you would want to gouge out your eyes rather then look at another slightly less course selection of sandpaper. My dad, in his infinite wisdom, decided that since the non-shinobi villagers are all infatuated with ninja's he could get them to come to the museum by adding a wing dedicated to the greatest shinobi in the five lands. In the most prominent display in the new wing he put an exhibit of

Chiyo-baa-sama, the shinobi who gave her life to save him, reluctantly he also included his own father and even Sasori of the Red Sand, reasoning that people should be aware of what dangers powerful ninja can be. From Konoha he had exhibits crafted for the Yellow Flash, their third hokage, Saratobi Azuma, and the White Fang, among others.

As it happens, Konoha's White Fang is Hatake Kakashi's father, also Ren's grandfather, and they of course were invited to Suna for the opening ceremony. So Hatake Anko, Kakashi, Obito, and Ren all took the long trip to be here for the ribbon cutting ceremony. I thought it was great, finally the museum would be worth attending and I got to hang out with Ren for a whole week in my home town. I wasn't the only one who thought it was great though. Unbeknownst to everyone but their closest friends (apparently my being her brother kept me out of the circle), Minori had started dating Ren's brother Obito, and she was really excited to introduce him to our parents. She arranged for our family's to have dinner together and while making introductions at the beginning of the meal she said to my father, "Dad, this is my boyfriend Obito." Shocking everyone at the table, except herself and of course Obito. Things went amazingly well, which is a feat for our family; we are talking about a family plagued with calamity after all. For example, two years ago on the Day of Remembrance my father invited the entire Suna council and their families to have dinner with us. We all sit down, my whole family, including aunts, uncles, and cousins, and the eight council members who actually showed up, and my father takes a knife to carve the turkey. Well, the second the knife pierces the crispy skin the whole turkey blows the fuck up. Luckily my dad managed to protect everyone with his sand shield, but the council was pretty shaken up. Apparently, my weird mad scientist cousin, Seiji, had been feeding all the poultry in the family's hen house doses of C4 in their food, hoping they would lay eggs we could use as bombs. He hadn't thought it would have any effect on the turkeys themselves, which was obviously a huge oversight. So, considering the ridiculousness that seems to follow us, Obito's introduction to the family had gone exceptionally well.

Later in the evening we all went to the ribbon cutting ceremony for the Shinobi wing. The turnout was amazing, my dad was happy, even cracking a smile, and it had been a great day. Unfortunately it wasn't going to continue. We had just gotten to the last big exhibit of the night, Konoha's White Fang. Ren was really excited, she knew her dad was really happy about the exhibit; he'd had some mixed emotions about his father when he was younger, and his inclusion in the museum as a hero of Konoha had made him really proud of his dad. This was a big event for their family, but when the doors opened and the spot lighting went on, the White Fang wasn't the only Hatake on display. Though he was the only one wearing any pants. Flashbulbs popped and video cameras recorded for posterity, the scene of my sister Minori bent over getting railed from behind by the White Fang's youngest male descendant. My sister screamed, my mother feinted, and suddenly everyone who wasn't family was pushed from the building by a wave of sand. And I'll tell you, this is why my soon to be brother-in-law is fucking awesome, the dude didn't even break stride. He didn't miss a stroke, through the whole thing he kept his pace steady, his hands firmly planted on my sister's hips he continued thrusting and actually blew his load while we were all standing there watching. Later he told me that he figured everyone had already seen and he couldn't suddenly erase what we saw by stopping, and since he was already so close he might as well get off. In addition, he figured if my dad was going to kill him he wanted to go out feeling good. The man is a genius. In my opinion, my sister couldn't be marrying a cooler guy. So anyway, immediately after my sister put her panties back on, my parents and the Hatake's drafted the wedding contract and announced it to the press in an attempt to spin the news that was about to be in every paper and on every television in the five lands in as positive of a light as possible. I don't know how well it worked, but it made our parent's feel a little less embarrassed by it. So now I've got the retreat and a wedding to look forward to.

Not to be self centered, but back to the task at hand. I think I'm going to take the position in Konoha, well at least for a year or two. That way I'll be able to travel more frequently back and forth from Suna and Konoha, and I'll still be able to visit the Hidden Leaf village. There are just too many people there that I'm not willing to give up yet. And with my sister getting married she'll be moving there in two months on a permanent basis. I couldn't deal with not seeing her for years, it would break my heart. So for the time being this liaison thing is a pretty good deal.


End file.
